Divine Solace Page 18

  Strength, beauty, uncertainty, challenge, control, trust...

  When she turned back to the computer, she indulged a darker urge. She clicked on an image of a woman in the stereotypical dominatrix gear she'd first imagined Lyda wearing. Tight, shiny garb, thigh-high boots, whip in her hand. This model had a cruel expression, slick red lips. Gen shifted her gaze back to the naked woman, sitting unafraid in darkness, the line of her back straight, self-contained in her solitude. Beautiful. The essence of Lyda was there, not on her computer screen.

  It didn't mean she couldn't wield a whip if she so chose. Gen replayed the sting when Lyda had struck her. What astounded her was how she'd taken it without protest. She wasn't ready to say she'd embraced it, but she'd definitely opened herself to the experience.

  Her cell phone buzzed, making her jump. The disruption jarred her back to a less pleasant reality, because phone calls often meant collection agencies still trying to collect on unsecured loans from her ex-husband. If Marguerite hadn't helped cosign on the house, Gen never would have acquired loan approval. He'd destroyed her credit rating that badly. Seeing the nursery number, however, she relaxed. She wondered which voice she'd hear at the end of the line, knowing she'd be thrilled by either one.

  "Hello?"

  "Hey, Gen. It's Noah."

  "I didn't know you knew how to use a phone. Chloe says you're a Fae spirit, unable to touch technology. Something like that."

  His chuckle sent a ripple of pleasure from her tailbone up through her vitals. Yes, she had it bad. "That girl is a troublemaker," he said. "Do you have Tuesday off?"

  "Depends. Why are you asking?"

  He sighed. "I'm surrounded by suspicious females."

  "Or smart, depending on how you look at it."

  "True. Want to go sailing with me? It's supposed to be a great day for it."

  She blinked. "Um...yeah. Remember, I don't really know much about it."

  "No worries. Just bring lots of sunblock, a willingness to learn and a swimsuit. Preferably something that doesn't cover a lot. It helps with the wind shear."

  "And you wonder why females are suspicious." She laughed. "Should I bring snacks?"

  "I'm never averse to snacks. I have a small storage area up front that holds the life jackets, so we can stow them there. I'll have bottled water."

  So this would be just her and him, not Lyda. "Did Lyda ask you to set this up?"

  "She gave me permission to set it up, but the idea was mine. Is that okay?" His tone was neutral, so she couldn't tell if she'd offended him or not.

  "I'm sorry, Noah. I'm not sure how this works. I wasn't trying to be snarky."

  "I know that." His tone warmed instantly, reassuring her. "See you in the morning. About eight, at the marina?"

  "I'll see you then."

  *

  When she parked at the marina and pulled the key from the engine, she waited a couple minutes for the motor to stop rattling and cut off. Her car was doing that more frequently of late. She'd learned to ignore people's looks when it did, or crack a joke like, "he likes to complain when I leave him alone". She didn't care she had an old car. It was all hers, and it took care of her.

  On the way over, she'd been enjoying the sexy tone of Kylie Minogue's version of "Can't Get You Out of My Head", which was the mood she hoped to sustain today. Seeing Noah first thing helped with that. Maybe too much, since she suppressed the urge to do a few cartwheels when she found him.

  He was watching for her, sitting on top of one of the pilings that followed the marina dock. He wore a pair of swim trunks, boat shoes and nothing else. Two young women were walking past him, their gaze lingering, because it was impossible for any straight woman not to indulge in a look. His hair was tied back in a thick tail, but it draped over his tanned right shoulder.

  The two girls had the bodies for their skimpy bikinis and short shorts, but Noah's gaze never left Gen's as she headed in his direction. She thought one of them made a passing flirtatious comment, but a polite, faint smile was his only response.

  She shouldered her tote as he slid off the piling, walked toward her with a loose-hipped stride. She was glad she'd dared to wear her two-piece. It wasn't hugely sexy, but the top did show off her breasts well without being in constant danger of falling off. She'd worn a pair of cut-off shorts over the bottoms. She might take them off later. Maybe. It was silly to be self-conscious, since Noah had seen her naked, but somehow the focus of all that had been Lyda's reaction. This felt different, just the two of them, and he looked so good. Wouldn't it be nice to be like a guy, not measuring his looks against her own, just enjoying a full ogle of his appearance?

  "Hi gorgeous," he said, making her decide right off it was going to be a nice day. He gave her car a look as it subsided. "I can fix that for you. It's just an ignition timing issue."

  "Really? I might take you up on that. If you let me pay for it, of course." She pushed on before he could shrug that off, as she knew he would. "Tyler keeps threatening to buy me a new car. I'm always deathly afraid I'm going to show up for work one morning and he'll have done it. I told Marguerite I'd quit if they did something like that."

  "You don't want Tyler to be your sugar daddy? In an entirely platonic, Marguerite-maybe-wouldn't-cut-up-my-body-for-shark-bait way?"

  His eyes danced and she pushed at him. He caught her hand, held it against his chest, his fingers sliding over her palm and knuckles. "I'm glad you came," he said.

  She took one of those unsteady breaths his touch seemed to cause, and curled her fingers to stroke the lightly furred flesh beneath them. "Me too. Are you going to teach me enough to keep me from drowning?"

  "Absolutely. If you offer me food. Or sexual favors. I accept either as payment."

  "Guys are so easy."

  "I thought we already discussed that." He pointed down to the bulkhead, where a two-man sailing craft waited, the mast raised and sails furled, ready to go. "If you want to hit a restroom before we head off, there's one in the marina office."

  "Okay."

  A few minutes later, she was ready. He'd stowed her tote, and offered her a hand onto the boat. He was sitting next to it on the floating dock, his feet holding the craft, keeping it steady as she stepped into it and sat down where he directed her.

  "In the beginning, I'll sail her, and talk you through the basics. Then you can start helping out. By the end of the day, you'll be able to single hand her."

  "So you can sit back and do nothing."

  "Except watch you."

  Then he was in the boat with her, casting off. He did it all so smoothly, she didn't have a chance to feel any trepidation, though she might have if she'd realized how small their boat was and how big the channel was. But he projected such calm, not at all concerned as he navigated the motorless boat among the power boat traffic. She sucked in a breath when the boat tipped.

  "Very normal," he assured her. "It's going to heel when the wind catches it. That's part of what makes it go, and the closer you can hold it to the wind, the faster we go. The trick is not letting the wind overpower it and capsize us."

  "Which is not going to happen."

  "No." He promised. "Let's do a tack. Move with me. One, two...now."

  He did that with her a few times, until she could do it with reasonable ease, moving from side to side of the boat with him as needed. Once she fell into the rhythm, she could enjoy looking at their surroundings, which included him. Leaning out over the water, his ab muscles tight, thighs taut, bare feet braced against the opposite edge of the boat. Holding onto the boat with her other hand, she slid her fingers over those abdominal muscles, wanting to feel.

  He glanced her way, but he didn't stop her. She caressed those shifting muscles, enthralled with them. Enthralled with him. Still, she wasn't sure what was allowed, so she contained herself, withdrew her hand.

  He'd made her don a lifejacket, but he wasn't wearing his. While she appreciated the access that provided her questing hand, as well as his effort to make her f
eel more secure, she wondered if that was more of what Lyda had implied. So protective of others, but not of himself...

  She was glad he'd warned her about the sunblock, because the reflection of the sun on the water which felt so good would nevertheless fry tender skin. He was so evenly tan, she expected he spent a lot of time out here with his students, but he had the faint coconut aroma of sunblock as well.

  A boat went by with a black Labrador on the bow. The dog was wearing a yellow life jacket and wagging his tail. With his majestic profile, he looked like a figurehead. The lolling tongue and dancing eyes made it clear he was ready to fling himself in the water the moment his master gave the go-ahead. Noah pointed out a set of kayakers paddling closer to the shore, one of whom had a dachshund sitting on his lap. The little dog was also wearing a lifejacket.

  When she asked, teasing, how Lyda's cats would react to boating, Noah gave her a slow smile. "It depends. Farclaws will lie in the birdbath on hot days. Sleep there, even. I think it just has to be their idea. They're a lot like their mistress in that regard."

  After about an hour of sailing, he maneuvered them into a quiet cove and loosened the lines, letting the sails flap and slowing them to a drifting halt. "Okay, let me show you the basics of handling her yourself. When you're comfortable, we can go back out again where you can really put her through her paces. Then we can park and have some lunch. This is a nice secluded place to relax and take an afternoon nap."

  "Okay." It occurred to her, the things that could happen during such a siesta, but there was no innuendo to the friendly suggestion. This time there'd been no instructions, no indication that Lyda was "giving" him to her. Caressing his abdominals was one thing, but more than that? She could ask him, of course, but felt shy about it. Maybe because if Lyda had said no, it would feel like rejection.

  Noah touched her collarbone, bringing her attention back to him. "Take off the lifejacket. You need to put on some more sunblock, because you're turning red in a couple places. Lyda and Marguerite will have my ass if I let you get burned."

  She unclipped the jacket as he retrieved the tube from stowage. When he proffered it, she met his gaze. "Will you put it on me?"

  "Sure." He gave her that look that made her stomach do a somersault like a happy squirrel. "Hold your hair off your neck."

  She turned her back to him. As those capable hands started smearing the block on her skin, a deep sigh welled up. Part pleasure, part other. "I don't know what's allowed, Noah."

  He paused. "What do you want to be allowed?"

  She looked at glittering water and green shoreline. A heron fished in the shallows of the cove. "I want to do whatever I feel like doing with you. But I don't want to do anything to offend Lyda. Or take advantage of how you are."

  "And how am I?" His teasing tone reassured her. Then he slipped the back strap of her bikini top. When she caught the front, he tapped her gently between the shoulder blades. "There's no one here but us. A lot of women get burned at the edges of their swimsuit because they put the block on while they're wearing it and they don't want to get the swimsuit messy. You can do the front part if you like, or I can do it."

  She shook her head. Spoke with a catch in her voice. "I want you to do it."

  His breath was on the back of her neck. Without saying anything further, he released the neck strap as well. Reaching under her arm, he slid his fingers beneath her grip to give the top a gentle tug, telling her he wanted her to let it go. She did. It left her sitting in her shorts and bottoms only. She heard him squirt more of the sunblock into his hands. The faint quiver of the boat suggested he was rubbing his hands together, making it less cold. She was still holding her hair up on her neck, and now she added the other hand, moving both arms out of his way.

  He slid up behind her, adjusting so one leg was aligned with her hip, the other angled so his foot dangled off the boat, though his thigh pressed against her, keeping her between his legs. When he leaned forward, his bare chest brushed her back, making her aware of the faint stickiness where the sunblock was drying.

  As his hands closed over her bare breasts, she drew in a breath. They rose in his hands like bread dough responding to heat. Chloe, their passionate baker, would laugh at that comparison. Gen looked down at his brown hands against her pale flesh. He rubbed the sunblock into the area the edge of her swimsuit would follow. The deliberate omission of the area closest to her nipples made them tighten, beg for touch.

  "You didn't answer my question, about 'how I am'," he murmured against her throat. She laid her head back against his shoulder, turned her face so her nose brushed his jaw. He was gazing down, eyes intent on his task, on her breasts.

  "I'm still learning everything a male submissive is, and Chloe keeps insisting you're all different. My exposure has been to Brendan. Doing things Marguerite or Chloe ask him to do brings him pleasure, the service. But I think there's a tendency for a woman to think it means...that she can treat you like an unpaid prostitute."

  His hands stilled. "I know that's not what you are," she added quickly. "But I would be really, really upset if you let me do that anyway, simply because you knew I was too ignorant or driven by my hormones to know better."

  She was very cognizant of how he cradled her breasts, simply holding them, but she forced herself to focus on the importance of the topic. "Your feelings are important to me, and I can't get a grasp on them. Or Lyda's, for that matter, in a lot of things. It's hard to get a handle on anyone when you've just met them, let alone two people who are part of something I really know so little about."

  "You know everything you need to know. In your head and heart. In your body." He put his mouth to her neck, shifting his grip so her nipples pushed into his palms. The contact made her moan, a soft sigh.

  "Lyda thinks you're good for me, Gen," he said. "And I like being with you. All you have to do is follow your own needs and desires. You don't have to think about it more than that, because I know you have a good heart. I'm not worried about what you'll do to me, only about what you'll allow yourself."

  Nothing in life was ever that simple. Yet when he resumed massaging the cream around her breasts, she couldn't think of anything else to say. Not when he occupied himself with kissing her neck, slow, sucking kisses that awoke erogenous zones all the way to her curling feet. Her backside pressed into the fiberglass in tiny, coital movements.

  "If we don't start sailing, there's going to be a lot of bare places on me where you'll need to apply sunscreen," she muttered.

  "You say that like it's a problem."

  She chuckled and wiggled to put some space between them, despite the incredible difficulty of finding the willpower. She retrieved her swimsuit top and gave him a narrow glance. "I was promised sailing lessons."

  He smiled. He also helped her put the swimsuit top back on, fastening the back and the neck piece, smoothing his hands briefly over her breasts, solemnly informing her it was to ensure everything was covered properly.

  When he finally began her sailing lesson, she realized he never really had answered her question, unless deflecting it back on herself was an answer. The man was like the sunlight glittering off the water. He wasn't the water or the sun, but some sparkling reaction between the two, part illusion, part reality.

  He shifted gears well, though. After about forty five minutes, thanks to his excellent teaching skills, she could handle the mainsail lines while he handled the jib of the small craft. She had them tacking well together, leading them in the duck beneath the boom. He'd been right about the privacy of the cove. They were undisturbed.

  "Only shallow craft can get through here," he explained. "With it being off the main channel, a good distance from the marina, only your most experienced sailors navigate to it. Plus it's a weekday. Ready to try the channel again?" he asked.

  "I'm not ready to solo yet."

  "We'll do it together until you tell me you want to solo. And I'll be right next to you when you finally do that. We're going to practice capsizing as w
ell. In here," he added at her alarmed look.

  They were at rest again and he'd turned fully toward her, one leg bent, the other doused in the water up to his knee. "Aren't we supposed to avoid doing that?"

  "Yes. But if it happens, you need to know how to right the boat. Say if I was hit on the head, or whoever you were sailing with was less experienced, you should be prepared. But you should never sail alone."

  "You do."

  He shrugged. "I've been doing this a long time. I really don't ever want you to sail alone, okay?"

  "Okay." She responded to the determined look in his eye, but she couldn't help asking. "Noah, do you care what happens to you?"

  For the first time since they'd met, she saw a shutter close fully behind his eyes. He lifted her hand, brushed his lips over it. "I serve my Mistress's will. I know it's important that I care for her. And you."

  She didn't know how to push it further than that without ruining their day. As Lyda had warned her, he could be stubborn. Proving it, he didn't let her pursue it, instead getting them back to the sailing.

  The wind had built and the tide had turned. Going out into the stronger wind and current of the channel, she discovered the exhilarating speed of a small craft, especially in the company of an incredibly experienced sailor like Noah. They made a good team, her following his direction to the letter about when to let off or draw in, shift weight. At one point they were both stretched out at a forty-five degree angle, the boat heeling enough to have them skimming over the water like a bird. She tipped her head back, her hair whipping over her shoulders, and laughed at the feeling of it. His eyes shone with the same feeling, making everything just perfect. A perfect moment, no matter what came before or after. She'd learned to treasure those rare gifts.

  She loved watching his mix of concentration on the sailboat and their surroundings, his appreciation of all of it. Another cliche discarded, the idea that a submissive male avoided situations where he was completely in charge. He handled the sailboat and her direction as crew with an impressive mastery she found arousing, mixed as it was with those conflicting signals in his personality. But she loved running Tea Leaves, and yet she'd submitted so willingly to Lyda, hadn't she? What had Lyda said? A strong sub needs and deserves to be able to surrender...